we got to go. greta is next. captioned by closed captioning services, inc. >> greta: this is a fox news alert. get ready. millions and millions of people up and down the entire east coast at high risk of getting slammed by hurricane sandy. the violent hurricane is now making its way toward the united states after already killing 40 people in the caribbean. sandy is expected to pummel the atlantic coast early next week. worst news. sandy is expected to merge with an approaching winter storm creating a superstorm that could generate hundreds of miles of damaging wind and intense rain that could last for several days. that could mean power outages for millions. tonight several governors including virginia, maryland, pennsylvania, and new york already declaring states of emergency. and that is not all. sandy could impact the election. the dangerous weather could make it very hard for some people trying to vote early. stay with fox news channel throughout the weekend for the latest on hurricane sandy's

path. right now, waiverring in wisconsin. president obama losing his lock on cheese country. a new poll shows the president and governor romney tied in wisconsin. is this a sign voters in the midwest are shifting stu port to governor romney budget any? >> wisconsin. this is important now. wisconsin 49-49 and you go back to 2008, obama carried wisconsin 56-42. >> something big is happening in wisconsin and there is stuff happening in oregon and stuff happening in iowa and there is stuff happening in iowa, ohio. and there is stuff happening in north carolina. there is stuff happening all over the place and the obama regime is looking smaller and smaller and smaller as they react to it. >> we have created 5.2 million jobs over 32 months. what is mitt romney's plan? he has is no plan. that is what the american people should be focused on. >> this is a huge election and we can't afford four more years of this and we have a big choice in front of us. go on with the broken promises not just on the economy but on

the deficit and on social security and medicare. >> and the president's bigger promise to unit us instead of dividing us. governor romney has a history of working with the other party in massachusetts and history of job creation. >> mitt romney is good at sending jobs away from america. governor, i got news for you. a president's job is to create jobs in america. for americans. with americans. bringing jobs home to americans. that is a president's job. you're not running for ceo of bain. >> the president's campaign slogan is forward. but the 23 million americans failing to find a good job feel a lot more like backward. >> the fact of the matter is that buf governor romney's ecoc policies are reverting back to the same policies that i inherited and the worst economic crisis since the great depression. >> despite all that he

inherited president obama did not repair the economy and save medicare and social security and tame the spending and borrowing. did he not reach across the ail to bring us together. what he inherited wasn't the only problem. what he did with what he inherited made the problem worse. >> greta: wisconsin is in play. the latest poll showing governor romney closing the gap. he is is now tied with president obama be. each of them with 49% of wisconsin's likely voters. the national polls painting an even grimmer picture for the president. this poll showing governor romney ahead by three. the governor with 50% of the vote and president obama with 47%. dick morris joins us. good evening, dick. >> good. i heard a great joke yesterday. if obama is reelected imagine the mess he will inherit. >> okay. i'm sure that the obama campaign will like that but the romney cam -- won't like that but the romney camp will enjoy that a bit. looking at the polls tonight,

wisconsin in four years ago, president obama stormed the state by 14 points. this does seem to be a seismic shift in the state. >> there is. wisconsin has become a republican state by virtue of the incredibly intense organizational efforts there of governor scott walker's people, americans for prosperity and various other political groups that have really mobilized the free market forces in the state. they have been through a recall election. a senate recall. a judicial election. and, of course, the original election in 2010 and they won them all and i think wisconsin is going to go for romney. let me put this in a context, greta. i don't think any one has the overview. 179 lectorral votes and states john mccain carried. indiana and north carolina where he just barely carried and they will undoubtedly go republican. 25 votes between them. that brings you up to 204. then you have 51 votes in swing

states that have at this point probably swung to romney. florida 29 votes where he is four or five ahead. virginia 13 where he is five or six ahead. and colorado 10 where he is four ahead. so that brings him up to 255. he has got to get to 270. so he is 15 short. then you have a market basket of 8 states that cast 98 elector aral votes where the polls are tied. new hampshire four votes. pennsylvania 20 votes, romney 2 ahead. ohio 18 votes. they are tied. iowa 6 votes, they are tied. wisconsin ten votes, they are are tied. michigan 15 votes, romney is one behind. minnesota 16 votes. romney is three behind. nevada 9 votes and romney s two behind. in all of those states obama is under 50.

and so since we are going to get three quarters or four fifths of the undecided vote for romney i think romney has a good chance to win all those states but he is certainly going to win at least one so he is going to get at least the 15 votes. this business that everybody should hang on what happens in ohio is ridiculous. he could lose ohio and carry either pennsylvania or minnesota or michigan and wisconsin or new hampshire and iowa and win the election. and it is ridiculous to say that everything hinges on ohio. ohio is proving more in tractable and more dead even. but i believe that if you look at the polls in iowa they have many -- too many democrats and too few republicans and proper polls in iowa would show romney one or two points ahead. but frankly my view, greta, is that romney is going to win this election by more than five points and he is going to get north of 320 electoral votes.

>> greta: let me ask you about the individual states. start first with pennsylvania. assume that he loses pennsylvania and ohio. byron york said that pennsylvania is sort of fool's gold and republicans think they can win it but never can win it. do you truly believe at this point that governor romney can win pennsylvania? >> of course, he can. republicans don't never win it. in 2010 they elected five new republican congressmen, a republican senator, a republican governor and republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. what more has a state got to do? i think he will win, pennsylvania, and i think he will win wisconsin and i think he has a very good chance of winning in michigan. of course, all of this preis supposes that the other side doesn't steal it which is something we need to work on. >> greta: ground game. level of importance between now and november 6 is what? >> very important. the republicans lost four

senate seats in 2010 because they didn't have a good ground game. and the democrats and the unions outworked them. now, i think the republicans have don't the message and are working like crazy on the ground making millions of phone calls and home visits. it is incredible. i go out every day and i'm amazed by what they are doing. i learned yesterday or two days ago, greta, that the united nations has decided to send inspectors to monitor our elections to make sure that they are honestly conducted and the guy at u.n. runing that is from slo slovania. and per fly, texas, refused to let the inch spectors in. this is the kind of stuff i talk about in black helicopters this global government that the u.n. wants to tell us the oldest democracy in the world how to do our elections. >> greta: i have to agree. we are the oldest democracy in

the world and the idea of the international monitors. i hope we have an aggressive justice department looking at the polls and the aclu can go out o and watch and monitor them. left, right, everybody. the idea that the oldest democracy is being sort of i -- >> put on trial. >> greta: i don't like the idea of foreigners coming in and checking to make sure that we can vote. >> i wanted to mention, i don't know if you will cover benghazi in the show but the one of the guys who died one of the former seals is -- was a man named ty woods and leaves a widow and three month old baby behind and at dick morris .com you can find the address for his memorial site. we have raised $120,000 for the widow and the baby. and please go on that site. because he retired from the seals a year ago, the seals do not pay him the death benefit they normally do and we want to

make sure this kid goes to college. >> greta: we are, indeed, the rest of the show is going to be about benghazi, dick. a great lead for me. thank you, dick and thank you for joining us. >> thanks a lot. >> greta: and there is shocking new information tonight about the september 11th terror attack in libya. today, fox news learning that urgent requests for help during the assault on our benghazi complex were made and they w denied. not once but denied three times. a small team of operatives at the cia annex not at the complex asked the cia for backup and asked to be allowed to go help those being attacked at the consulate. fox news has been told the three requests were denied by the cia chain of command. the cia says the claims are not accurate. the white house has been reluctant to give out information about what happend that night. here is what we do now. 8:30 p.m. libya time. ambassador stevens at the benghazi consulate finishes his final meeting and escorts a

turkish diplomat outside the consulate entrance. all appears normal and calm. at 9:40 p.m. gun fire and explosions erupt. meanwhile, at about 10:00 p.m., the main consulate building is already thick with smoke. ambassador is stevens and colleague shawn smith can't get out. 10:05 p.m. a state department e-mail goes out announcing they know the benghazi mission is under attack. 10:54 p.m. another e-mail says the firing has stopped and a team is trying to locate personnel. by 11:00 p.m. the american rescue team finds smith's body but not the ambassador. the team then flees the consulate, returns to the cia annex which is a mile away. sometime after midnight, the looters enter the consulate, they find ambassador steven's body and take him to the hospital. 12:07 a.m. another state department e-mail says an al-qaeda linked group claimed

responsibility for the attack. 1:00 a.m. ambassador stevens is pronounced dead at a local hospital. 2:00 a.m. american reenforcements arrive from tripoli and head to the annex. 4:00 a.m. the annex comes under mortar fire. former navy seals tyrone woods and glen dougherty are killed. soon after all of the main personnel evacuated the annex. former assistant secretary of defense and author of the book "into the fire" joins us. good evening, bing. >> good evening, greta. >> greta: i know you have been critical of how the government handled this. tell me. >> i think today a good a lot worse. the situation is very serious and most of the press doesn't want to touch it because many of them are cheerleaders for president obama. beyond that you valu have to lt what is going on and that is that president obama today said that he gave an order to everyone while the attack was

going on to do everything they could to secure the personnel. that is really big because that means that those who were turning down ty woods when was asking for the help were going against the orders of the president of the united states. and a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff doesn't take an order from the president when says do everything and not put that in writing and send it out to the chain of command. so if that actually happened the way president obama today said it happened there is a paper trail. and i think people reasonably enough can say can we see the order because hundreds of others supposedly saw you this order. but if there is no order people have to ask basic questions what the heck happened. >> greta: i will tell you that cia director petraeus has said this he said no one at any level in the the cia, he says only in the cia told any one not to help those in need. claims to the contrary are

simply inaccurate. if no one in the cia did, who did because jennifer griffin who broke the story for us says that she has the best sources, sources from on the ground in benghazi. >> i think jennifer griffin deserves the pulitzer prize for what she has been doing in the story because she keeps uncovering layer after layer. what really puzzles me is general petraeus was saying you better look some where else outside the cia and the military did not send any assets except a drone to watch the battle. that totally totally i just don't understand when ty woods who season on the ground says i need help, i can see the enemy, i have a laser pointer on the enemy, give me air support and they don't do it and then the secretary of defense says well, if i don't have perfect information i don't think i can put your forces in harm's way. holy smokes, what do we have forces for? i think everything comes back to what was happening in the

oval office and the president was sitting there the secretary of defense was there, the national security advisor was there and general dempsey was there and i think the american public have an absolute right to know did the president actually give the order to move the mih military to help and somehow the military decided not to? i have the gravest resources expectations that the military said no, mr. president, we are not going to move. >> greta: twice today according to media accounts the president was asked twice a benghazi question. it says were americans under attack ever denied help and twice the president didn't answer that question and dodged it. i don't know what the president's answer is but he has had opportunity to answer questions at least by this denver station. and he certainly has the opportunity to get on television and to sort of fill in the blanks so that people can find out what happened and certainly so that -- almost seems like the humane thing to

do for the families. >> far beyond that it seems to me. and that is in all due respect to the families but also our ambassador is our symbol of america. and the president takes credit for liberating libya. and libya doesn't have armed forces. they scarcely had a government and holy smokes not to go to save our own ambassador? i don't get it. i really don't get it. that is why i have been trying to push it but jennifer griffin has really been doing the hard work on it and i know you will have general scales on and he will go into what he has heard from his sources. my sources said that they didn't hear any order from the president to send in the military. >> greta: what do you think -- what do you think did happen then? what is your -- what is a reasonable inference from what you do know? >> i hate to get in the mind of somebody else but it is pretty manifest that these people at that level haded never been in a firefight and didn't

understand if you are on the defense at night the attackers continue to come. they don't just stop for awhile. if they had the notion that they put out this was a mob they could have a reasonable expectation a mob gradually calms down. if they were terrorists they won't calm down. the other thing that the president owes a huge amount of thanks to is the real mob. the mob that came in about midnight and found body of the ambassador and had the decency to bring him to a hospital. holy smokes can you imagine the story we would be having now if terrorists instead had come back and taken his body and taunted us over the phone. to a certain extent the mob really saved the bacon of the president for his reelection to a certain extent. >> greta: i think we can't say enough about tyrone woods and i know you are supposed to obey commands in the military. he was told not to go from the annex over to the consulate and violated at least from what i

understand that he did violate and went over there and couldn't find the ambassador but did help other people leave the consulate and save lives. he gave up his life and i know horrible thing inre oible the military not to obey an order but he wasn't in the military at that time. he saved an awful lot of lives and gave up his own. >> that is the other similarity. i wrote this book with medal of honor recipient. two years ago he disobeyed orders and didn't get help from his chain of command for six hours. i never thought i would bump into anything like that. ty woods did the right thing by disoh boying orders. estrength wally paid -- eventually paid with his life. why we didn't have jets overhead to help him i'm dumb founded by that. >> greta: and why doesn't his father have the facts about what happened? the straight story of what happened? >> i don't know because --

>> greta: go ahead. >> i was going say if you are at a squad level or company level and everybody in the army and marine corps listening to me know what i'm going to say. after a fire fight there is an immediate debrief. you get out the good and bad right away. you don't hide anything. if you are a general or secretary of defense or a president you should have the same rules for you that you have for us. >> greta: thank you, sir. >> thank you, greta. >> greta: straight ahead, major general bob scales. he says the u.s. should have taken more forceful action in libya. what does he mean by that? general scales goes "on the record" next and rush limbaugh has something to say about the new obama campaign ad we showed you last night. you have to hear all of the reaction, and you will, coming up. seems they haven't been moving much lately.

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>> greta: major fe general bob scales calling the september 11th attack on the libya consulate a premeditated act of war and says the united states h should have taken a more forceful action. major general bob scales joins us. good evening, sir. >> how are you, greta? >> greta: very good. the view is during the course of the event what would have been sort of the espected reasonable things a good

military commander would have done. give me both answers. >> i will tell you, there is an old military tenet that says when the events is are uncertain and ambiguous you energy to the sound of the gun. in this case marching is 400 in air miles to benghazi. it bass a two hour flight. but according to jennifer griffin whose reporting has been magnify is sent there was a delta team on the ground. there were ac 130 specter gunships and fighter aircraft on the ground. had they been launched as soon as news of the attack started perhaps they might have been over the target and let me tell you, greta, if you are a mortar grew in benghazi and you hear a specter gun overhead the first thing you do is pack up and move on. >> greta: i guess there was probably some mobilization we

didn't hear about. didn't seem like any military made contact on the ground with any of these people. >> there is a thing called the fog of war and my information or my sources tell me that there was this narrative that was floating around in the theater of war that said that this wasn't an attack on the embassy as it was going on. it was merely the narrative was that it was merely a mob action and there is is the tendency sometimes in the field for you to believe the narrative and look through the lense of a drone and look down and maybe you see something that really isn't there. perhaps that is what happened. the bottom line is that the united states had plenty of fire power, very discrete, very lethal firepowerrer that could have broken up this attack on o the embassy early on and had plenty of time to get there but they were as jennifer griff fen said to eloquently they were told to stand down. i don't think there is now doubt had this -- go ahead. >> greta: this was not a short feet. this went on for about seven hours. >> right.

>> greta: there is a little more extra time to think than if this were a 15 minute fight. >> right. >> greta: there were two drones over it. how well can they identify at night what is going on on the ground? >> they have multiple sensors. the most useful at night s an ir sensor an infrared and through this you you can see through the night. you can see through the dust and fog of battle and spot individuals on the ground. they appear as tiny little black specks on the screen and you could clearly see for instance a mortar section setting up outside the annex and groups of people marching on the annex in some type of formation and could clearly track what you see through the drone through the information that you are getting from the man on the spot on top of that annex. in addition, he had a laser target designator. this is a large binocular like desize that laces the target. as soon as an ac 130 got

overhead he could pass the exact information to the aircraft a couple of 105-millimeter cannon rounds and end of mission. unfortunately, greta, that didn't happen. >> greta: if you have an ac 130 overhead, we had time to get an ac 130 there. we could have sent one and had it circle at 40,000 feet and do nothing but at least we would have had in in the area so a decision could be made whether or not to take any action. >> that is an important point. they say the situation wasn't clear. it was ambiguous. we were getting constant information. okay. that's fine. the right answer is launch everything you have is and put it in the air and make your decisions and clarify the situation once the assets are en route. you don't wait to get the situation clarified before you launch some type of rescue effort. as you said and is being said this firefight lasted 7 hours, my information tells me that some of the people who were

watching this fire fight kept waiting for it to die down, waiting for the crowd to disburse. when you have terrorists 23409 going to disburse. they have their own war plan and they will attack the embassy and the annex and continue to attack until something causes them to disburse, greta. >> greta: general, thank you, sir. >> thank you, greta. >> greta: coming up, four americans that were killed in libya including our own ambassador. urgent requests for help were denied. former u.n. ambassador are john bolton here next. also a political panel from today's new developments about benghazi to new polls showing governor romney gaining momentum in the race. how could it shake up the race? the smartest political panel on tv, straight ahead. mike rowe here at a ford dealer with a little q&a for fiona.

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>> greta: four americans murdered in libya. has been six weeks and the obama administration is either stone walling or dragging its feet to tell the american people exactly what happened. former u.n. ambassador john bolton says the obama administration has given one excuse after another. he joins us. good evening, sir. >> good evening, greta jet not the only giving excuses but some throwing under the bus with the cia director saying we are not the ones who denied the order and panetta is also backing off this. >> two things. one that west brought out earlier. reporting by fox news that says that the cia gave orders not to assist personal at the

consulate and denied request for assistance from its own station there in benghazi. and then general petraeus' spokesman issues a statement saying the cia didn't deny the requests which clearly implies somebody else is did. i will come back to that in a moment. jason chaffetz just said on sean hannity's show in his trip to libya he traveled with general carter hamm and said that general hamm told him nobody asked him to deploy military forces to benghazi. now, secretary pa pe panetta sd that they all agreed that they shouldn't deploy forces. general hamm has now been characterized in two obviously conflicting ways. somebody out to find out what he actually was saying on september 11th. >> greta: i think you have also president obama has denied -- i shouldn't say denied.

he was asked and dodged twice on a denver tv station when was asked were americans under attack denied help. it sounds like now we are getting to the point and i say this with sort of who is on first where it does seem to be unraveling. we are not getting answers at all. >> i think it goes directly to the oval office for two reasons. first as you and i have discussed several times before. i think it is the president's ideology that explains a lot of what is going on here. they can't process the reality that terrorists, al-qaeda in particular are resurging in libya and the way it works in washington if you see a president who is reluctant to use military force there are political generals and others who can come up with a lot of reasons not use military force and we have seen a lot of different excuses. it would teak too long. it was only a demonstration. my favorite we had to ask the permission of the government of libya to protect americans protesters being killed. when you you see a profusion of

different reasons why you couldn't do something leads knee think in the oval office the president was giving up a negative vibes about any use of force and that got translated down the ranks. >> greta: and the other thing is this thing about the video which went on and on and on where there were multiple times when the president, jay carney, other representatives of the obama administration were still pushing the video story when we knew that in real time they had a lot better picture of what was going on. the e-mails. they could see with the drones what was going on and there were mortars and a lot of things about it but still pushed on and on with the video story. >> that gets harder and harder to understand. the most revealing aspect of the video story was the statement by the father of one of the seals who died so heroically trying to protect the other americans that when the bodies came back to andrews air force base that secretary

clinton said we are going to arrest the guy that made the video and prosecute him. right there in this very emotional moment with the four dead americans being greeted on their return to the united states the secretary of state was talking about the video to the father of one of the dead heros. >> greta: am a bass dorland, thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> straight ahead, 11 days until the election. the candidates hammering the swing states. could it all come down to, no, not ohio but wisconsin. our expert panel is here next. in two minutes, everyone is talking about it including rush limbaugh. the obama campaign ad we showed you last night now sparking all kinds of reaction. you will hear from rush and awi lot more.ca that's two minutes away. now find the most hard core driver in america. that guy, put him in it. what's this? [ male announcer ] tell him he's about to find out. you're about to find out. [ male announcer ] test it. highlight the european chassis, 6 speed manual, dual exhaust, wide stance, clean lines,

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sand. before i was a girl and now i was a woman. i went to the polling station and pulled back the curtain and i voted for barack obama. >> greta: and now firey reaction. some good. some bad. >> that ad losing it shows everybody obama is losing it. >> who approved this message? valerie jarrett, anita dunn? stephanie cutter? like who thought this was a great idea. >> i think it crosses the line. >> i think it is genius. >> why? >> i think this is the smartest think has done. we have been talking about benghazi. this takes the debate off of benghazi and puts it back on birth control. >> greta: what do you think of the ad? go to gretawire .com. we are back in two. but how am i going to fund it? and i have to find a way to manage my cash flow better. [ female announcer ] our wells fargo bankers are here to listen, offer guidance and provide you with options tailored to your business. we've loaned more money to small businesses

than any other bank for ten years running. so come talk to us to see how we can help. wells fargo. together we'll go far. so, which supeast 4g lte service would yochoose, based on this chart ? don't rush into it, i'm not looking for the fastest answer. obviously verizon. okay, i have a different chart. going that way, does that make a difference ? look at verizon. it's so much more than the other ones.

so what if we just changed the format altogether ? isn't that the exact same thing ? it's pretty clear. still sticking with verizon. verizon. more 4g lte coverage than all other networks combined. [ laughing ] [ laughing ] [ laughing ] [ laughing ] ♪ >> greta: big news now you it could be wisconsin that is the decider. our panel is here in just 60 o seconds. first let's go to the new york newsroom where marianne rafferty is standing by with the other head lines. >> the death toll from hurricane sandy is rising.

the storm is being blamed for 40 deaths in the caribbean. 20 in haiti alone. forecasters warn that hurricane sandy could turn into a monster storm it is a collides with two other systems with new york. damaging winds and rain could pound the entire eastern region for days. mold and bacteria growing inside the massachusetts pharmacy linked to the deadly meningitis outbreak. health inspectors finding evidence of contamination in rooms that were supposed to be stair reconcile. the feds also saying employees knew about the growing mold but didn't do anything about it. the outbreak killed 25 people and kickenned nearly 340. i'm marianne rafferty. now, back to "on the record." >> greta: all eyes on the swing states and tonight news governor romney now erased president obama's lead in wisconsin. new poll showing the candidates tied. joining us our political panel. rick klein. john mccormick and byron york.

before we get to wisconsin, there is going to be a problem in ohio, isn't there? >> the fun part as journalists we will not going to know going into election day who s going to win and not going to know on election night who won. in ohio provisional ballots. hundreds of thousands who asked for absentee ballots. they have to cast a provisional ballot and that won't even be looked at for a full ten days after the election. we are talking about a big window. if the universe of people that cast provisional ballots is larger than the difference you won't have a concession and nobody will win the ohio electoral votes until maybe thanksgiving. >> wisconsin could do a better job, do you think? >> they have had some votes very recently. the fact that the president is going to wisconsin. joe biden is going to wisconsin. the fact that they are going there and campaigning at this stage in the campaign when

there is such other critical states shows you this is a danger area now for them. if you look at mitt romney's nonohio scenario and think what are the ways i would win if i don't win ohio wisconsin is key too that and looking better for him. >> greta: you are from wisconsin. >> exactly. they are going all in this wisconsin. even buying ad time in minneapolis which is an expensive tv market to get a few hundred thousand votes in western wisconsin. really is interesting this could be the first year where ohio would go for the democrat and wisconsin could go for the republican. first of all, this is the auto bailout. that plays well for are obama in ohio. where are it saved a lot of jobs but not in wisconsin where the auto bailout failed to keep open the gm plant in janesville. and scott walker's union reforms succeeded and then paul

ryan the native son who could help out a lot. >> i also think there is a snub value. i remember when there was a recall vote and the mayor of milwaukee the democrat wanted president obama to come and he flew from washington to mississippi for a fundraiser over -- from washington to minneapolis and flew from minneapolis to wisconsin again over the state of wisconsin and failed to stop to help. >> a clear snub. and republican ares are really organized in wisconsin. they had the big recall election. they have gotten together for a major partisan fight not all the way back in 2010 but just a few months ago. >> if they he come close and don't wen a lot of people will be wondering why the romney campaign didn't go in earlier. the only time he was there until this monday was to welcome paul ryan to his home state. it was a carey and gore state but -- it was a kerry and gore state. there was a lot of evidence to suggest you can put this in

play at the national level. they are now very much awake to the fact that they need offense and a backup plan out of ohio, wisconsin key to that. a lot of months that went by they weren't paying allot of attention. >> same day registration and the university of wisconsin with 40-50,000 students there. >> john kerry spent the night there in 2004 because he knew that they had same day registration. >> and when said lambert field instead of lambeau that was a dead giveaway. straight ahead the political impact of benghazi. we will ask the politicalness panel. so don't touch that remote. with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g.

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>> greta: new tonight the cia denied help to americans under attack in libya who asked for help not once, not twice. they asked three times and they were denied three times. will that news impact the election? back with your political panel. byron, any impact on this at all? >> still a few days to go and president obama was asked actual tough questions about this today. he has been talking to mtv and jay leno he and "the view. ". he did a bunch of satellite local interviews with local stations. kusa in denver. the reporter asked him a number of pointed question hes. asked twice about this issue.

were american operatives denied requests for backup help while they were under attack in benghazi. he pointedly did not answer that question. now, will this ignite more curiosity and make the president make more people ask the president about this? i don't know. but it is really really clear this s a question he does not want to answer. >> greta: john, any impact? >> i think this is an even more serious issue than the previous questions concerning the coverup and the fact that there were requests for security beforehand. right now the president himself says he doesn't in the investigation hasn't finished yet and he needs more information before he can say what happens. he doesn't need a forensic investigation on the ground to know whether there was a security request while the fire fight was going on. did it make it up the chain of command to him? if not him, who denied the request. the cia says it wasn't them. we have reports saying that they denied the security

request. these are questions the president has to answer. i don't think six weeks after the attack does anybody believe that the president of the united states doesn't know whether there was a security request? there would be records of this. >> greta: do the voters care about this? >> mitt romney is out there making speeches every day and doesn't bring this up. a lot of people willing to bring it up and a lot of folks in the conservative movement and just independent journalists want this to be a beggar issue and brought to the forefront. i don't think the romney campaign thinks this moves voters. i think they would love for this to gain steam. that is their calculation is this is not something that voters care about. it could teak the president down a serious notch. it is curious because if he wanted this to be talked about consistently between now and the election you have a big platform as a presidential candidate to make that happen. >> i think the romney campaign sent out an e-mail taking issue with a number of things the president saided in the local

tv interviews and nothing at all. >> heads i win tails you lose scenario. if he brings it up people ask is romney politicizing the issue now. if he doesn't bring it up people say romney is not bringing it up so it is not an issue. >> this will go so far off the radar screen. thisamericans dead but this regrettably if there is a big storm that hits the united states this will not be a discussion among the media. >> if there is a big storm the president gets a chance to go and inspect things and promise help and have the federal government be doing all sorts of things to help people and shows the power of the incumbency in an election. >> it is a presidential moment but also right now an active early vote operation interrupted by this and there is a big day monday for the president with bill clinton and three different battleground steats and that potentially gets blown offcourse. i don't think anybody is looking forward to the way this impacts politics.

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>> greta: a new children's book is teaching kids about our country. the author? calista gingrich. >> nice to see you. >> thank you. >> this is fun. a brand new book land of the pilgrim's pride starring alice the elephant. >> this is his second book. first is "sweet land of liberty". this he discovers colonial america. >> greta: how do you coming up come up with the concept? >> i don't know how she picked it. i was for a hamster at one point. i lost. >> greta: good to know that. >> with a hamster you know, didn't have the same ring. >> i knew we needed a unique character to capture the

interest of children. i considered a lot of animals but in the end i couldn't resist this adorable little elephant. >> greta: i love how the language is so simple, even members of congress could understand it? >> i don't think she quite gets down to that point. >> greta: it's a great book. what is the next one? >> a book on the american revolution. >> greta: when will that come out? >> probably within a year. >> greta: so you'll be back. he is nonpartisan, is that right? >> that is right. i really hope people will see it as a celebration of the patriotic values of our country. >> greta: thank you both. >> thank you for being with us tonight. make sure you go to gretawire.com. good night from washington i'll see you monday night. go to gretawire.com. dispatchedl up the east